Random Ramblings from Mom about biking, kids, and food, with the occasional sprinkling of science fiction references. It's all good!

What’s new?

April 17, 2014

by Erin B

Well, new socks:

And another Mother/Daughter pair in progress. I had enough yarn left over from a ball, that Little girl called “Easter Egg Socks” and she wanted a pair, so I am frantically knitting to get them done by Sunday.

I managed to crack one of my cast iron pans. I’m not sure how. I feel a little sick about it.

And…. I have come to terms with having made a mistake as a mom. The problem with mom mistakes is that they are easy to make and hard to fix. In this case, it was about kindergarten. Little Girl wasn’t ready to go in the fall. I knew it. T knew it. The school told us she would catch up in a month or so and be on track for the rest of the year. I had my doubts, but they were the experts.

So we enrolled her this fall.

The last report card came out about a month ago and Little Girl is “Beginning to Meet Expectations.” Which basically means this is the point where she is ready to start kindergarten. The thing is I agree. She is ready to start now. Except that we are now seven months through kindergarten and she is only starting to be able to do the things she should have been doing in the fall.

Easy fix, right? She basically missed (or at least missed out on) seven months of school because she couldn’t hold still and learn to read. Yes, whole language reading starts in kindergarten now. So, we just call this year pre-k and do kindergarten twice, right?

No.

The principal has told us that the “social implications” of holding kids back are so terrible, that they never do it. Basically, that Little Girl will be so bullied if we hold her back it will be WORSE than moving up a grade when everyone else has beginning reading skills and she doesn’t. She’ll catch up, they say.

Fool me once, shame on you! I’m not happy that the school seems to be trying to fool me twice. Is this how people get out of school and still can’t read? If the reading program they are using starts in kindergarten, and Little Girl can’t recognize the minimum number of words they need to go into Grade one, how is she supposed to do two years of work in one year next year? At the very least, that seems like a recipe to raise a kid that hates school and learning.

Honestly, at this point, I’m not sure what to do. T has spoken to the superintendent, who seems supportive of the idea of a second year of K…. but at this point, do I want to send her to a school where the principal has said there will be “social implications” of a repeat year?

And that is why I am spending some time looking for another school. There is a Catholic school just up the road, but it is over crowded and I’m pretty sure I am too heathen to send my kid there. I’m certainly too heathen to be allowed vote in their school board elections. There is a french immersion program that Little Girl could ride a school bus to attend. It is conveniently just up the road from T’s parents’ house.